


Null Reference Exception

by Laburnum



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Guilt, M/M, Non-Permanent injury - Freeform, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 21:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18764401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laburnum/pseuds/Laburnum
Summary: Cally thinks that a situation like this is the one thing in the world Blake's talent for blustering words can do nothing for. How helpless Blake must have felt on that planet's rocky surface, holding his companion's unconscious body on a deserted road waiting for the Liberator to orbit back into communications range, hoping against hope that Avon doesn't bleed out before Jenna can transport them both back to safety.





	Null Reference Exception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kangeiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/gifts).



 

 

Three teleporter recalibrations and a manual override later Jenna pulls the lever again, murmuring a prayer to a god she doesn't believe in, and their missing crew finally materialize on the teleporter platform. Blake is on his knees, cradling Avon's unconscious body in his lap, clothes and hands patchy with a horrific amount of blood. Avon's curled up on his side, eyes closed, face sheet white and sheened with sweat; his arm falls aside as Blake move, and Cally sees that a snapped-off metal tube is embedded in his thigh; impossible to tell how deep it goes. Impossible to tell from his dark clothes, but the blood seems to be his, and it smears on the floor as Blake tries to get to his feet before collapsing under Avon's deadweight.

Cally, who had seen her share of injuries in her time as a field medic on Saurian Major, is the first to react. "Gan, come here. We need to get him to the medical room. Blake, what on earth happened?" She bends down and cautiously touches Avon's shoulder, and immediately has to draw back; the sudden arrow rain of agony, momentarily white-hot, slows to a gentle echo and then to nothing.

"Exactly what Avon said would happen," Blake replies. "You don't have to say I told you so. He'll make sure I grovel for my mistake later. If he lives long enough."

Between him and Gan they hoist Avon down the Liberator's long corridors and into the storage room containing the medical equipmet. Cally, following close behind, throws open three cupboard doors and pulls out a series of instruments; tosses the holistic scanner to Gan, who is already riffling through blood packs preparing for transfusion. She finds a penknife from the pile and starts shearing a long gash down Avon's trousers, her gloved hands already wetting with blood. This is one of Avon's favourite outfits and he will be upset to lose it, but Blake can take responsibility for that, too.

By the door, Jenna who had followed them from the teleporter room has taken over the third degree. "Blake, what happened down there? You said it was just a routine search and recon."

"I know what I said," he says, "I was wrong. I wanted to believe the report so much that I didn't notice the signs, and I was wrong, and Avon's paying the price."

Cally has finally had enough. "You two, out," she says, and physically herds both of them from the room.

"Is he going to be all right?" Blake asks.

"Ask me in two hours' time," Cally says, hits the door close button and locks it once it's fully shut. Let Blake stew; he seems intent on martyring himself for everything that went wrong on this mission anyway. Even through the gloves, Avon's pain is a whisper in the back of her mind. She calls to Gan to get the undiluted soma, puts Avon under before the worst that is yet to come.

The flesh around the entry site is already darkened and mottling. She flushes the injury site with saline; briskly secures tourniquets on both sides of the wound and, with Gan's help, yanks the shrapnel free and applies pressure immediately. The shock of it fills the room as blood sprays the trolley, and Cally has to pause what she's doing just long enough to telepathically shield. Something must have shown on her face anyway, because Gan's face twists, but he doesn't turn away or stop what he's doing. Cally is momentarily glad everyone else is outside and not in here. The rest is routine: apply the regeneration nanomachine patch; cauterize the main laceration and suture the rest.

Throughout all of it Blake remains in the corridor outside the medical room door, the sound of his pacing a tiny distraction which Cally studiously tries to ignore. After the better part of two hours she finally unlocks the door, and Blake immediately looks up from where he's leaning against the wall. "How is he?"

"Stable," Cally replies tersely. Relief spreads over Blake's face and his shoulders, high with tension, visibly drop.

She excuses herself and leaves Gan to watch him

Both on Saurian Major and here on the Liberator, Cally has lived among Terrans for some time now. Ordinarily, the background hum of their emotions is low-key, fluctuating only in small degrees with the frustrations of the day, and she can tune that out easily. Tensions running high like this, though, are like a tidal wave that blow straight through her shielding. Now that her immediate work is done, she just needs distance and to sleep it off.

  
  


 

Sixteen hours later.

"Is Avon supposed to still be unconscious?" Blake asks. "It's been a day."

"Intravenous soma," Cally replies. "He doesn't strictly need to be, but the regeneration nanomachines work more efficiently" She pauses to draw breath. "Besides, believe me, he doesn't want to be awake for this."

"But he's all right?"

 _Concern for someone's well-being_ bleeds through her telepathic shields and she says, "Sit with him a while if you want to, Blake."

Which Blake does. It's strange, Cally thinks, seeing Blake humbled like this, given how confident and selfsure he usually seems.

Jenna and Vila had coaxed the full story out of him sometime between yesterday evening and this morning. The Federation official Blake had hoped to follow back to a intelligence base had led them to the highest floor of a building that turned out to be abandoned. By the time they figured out the ruse, they were left with less than three minutes to clear the building before explosives  embedded within the building's foundations collapsed it from the ground up. Blake had cleared the building with seconds to spare; Avon, two steps behind, hadn't been as lucky. According to Blake, Avon had shoved him out of the way of falling rubble - again.

Cally, used to dealing with an infirmary's waiting room, thinks that a situation like this is the one thing in the world Blake's talent for blustering words can do nothing for. How helpless Blake must have felt on that planet's rocky surface, holding his companion's unconscious body on a deserted road waiting for the Liberator to orbit back into communications range, hoping against hope that Avon doesn't bleed out before Jenna can transport them both back to safety.

She thinks Blake doesn't leave Avon's side for that whole day and then whole night, alternating between talking to him and silence. She will not listen in on what Blake is saying, but the emotional colour of the room is tense and deep with regret. Perhaps, she thinks, Blake can only say these things at this time precisely because Avon is not awake to hear it.

There are many things Blake cannot do under ordinary circumstances; as the figurehead of the rebellion, he must always project the specific image that will incite others to believe him and follow him. It is in order to follow that very image that she herself is here, after all. But Kerr Avon alone, among the people on this ship and off, is the one who most consistently sees past the stirring speeches of the rabble-rouser to the man beneath.

Cally knows they worked together once on a technology project from a different era; now, seeing Blake's concern for the man, she wonders if they had been friends then. Thinks that in a different and brighter world, they might still be.

 

 

 

At exactly half past seven ship's time Cally stops outside the medical room, deliberately makes her footsteps heavy to announce her presence before she pushes the button that slides open the door. Blake stirs from where he has fallen asleep in the chair. "Get some rest," she tells him. "I'll tell you as soon as anything happens."

Blake leaves obediently enough, but going by the intercom conversations, he had headed for the engine room instead of for his quarters. Cally thinks he hasn't properly slept since getting back; probably won't until he knows for a fact that Avon will be fine.

  


 

Avon wakes up a little past ship's noon and Cally is at his side as soon as he stirs. "How are you feeling?"

He tries to shift position inside the energy cocoon, winces as he moves the injured leg. "Like a building collapsed on me."

"According to Blake that's exactly what happened. Try not to move too much. The nanobots aren't quite done."

Avon's lips purse. "He did mention it's his fault?"

"Hasn't stopped mentioning it in two days," Cally replies—thinks Avon smiles slightly at that—and heads over to the intercom to notify Blake.

  
  
  


The first words out of Avon's mouth when the door slides open and Blake enters: "I told you it was a trap."

"And you were right," Blake concedes.

From the surprised look on Avon's face, he had not expected a conciliatory rejoinder. "That's it? 'You were right'? No self-righteous screeds or self-justifications for why it was _absolutely necessary_ to chase a suspected Federation official to his lair?"

Just like Avon to drive the dagger in.

Blake exhales lightly, and Cally thinks Blake is now thoroughly regretting the ostentatious display of consternation he has put on for the last two days.

"You noticed the signs that something was wrong and you were _right_ , Avon. That's all there is to it." A pause. "I am truly sorry for not believing you."

If Avon were a cat, he might be preening; immobilized as he is, he settles for a sharp smile edged with satisfaction.

"And—thank you for saving my life. Again."

He has definitely rehearsed this, Cally thinks.

"Consider it repayment for getting me off Cygnus Alpha,' Avon replies. "And believe me, I only did it because you're more use to me and this lot alive."

"Save me once, shame on me. Save me twice, and I start wondering what your motive is."

By now the beat of the conversation has turned to their usual verbal altercations, and Cally tunes the rest of it out; if anything it signifies that Avon is up and running at full capacity again or close to it.

When Blake has finally been annoyed enough to leave—and he would have had to be the one of them to leave, considering Avon is still very much confined to this room—Cally turns to Avon again. He still seems to be basking in the victory, and it occurs to her again that on some level Avon probably _enjoys_ this.

"Avon, are you ever going to tell Blake?"

"Tell Blake what exactly, Cally?"

 _That you love him,_ she thinks but does not say. It is impossible to tell if he is genuinely unaware or just willfully obtuse; only Avon, she thinks, could carry a torch so bright yet buried so deep.

There had been very few secrets among the Auronar. Telepathy had been one factor, but more than that, they trust each other implicitly in motive and in deed. Among Terrans, things are very different. Over time she has grown familiar with their rituals of conveying information, which are concerned first and foremost with self-preservation, but she thinks she will never be accustomed to it.

"The real reason you saved his life," she says instead, and leaves him to think that over. She has learned a lot from him about plausible deniability.

Something has changed today, and now she wonders how long Blake and Avon's differences will hold out against the tide - the rebellion, the Federation, and the remaining unknowns the future still holds. Somehow, she has the premonition that the revolution will live or die at the hands of the two of them.

  
  
  


The next day.

"Thoth XII in the 6th sector, a former Federation stronghold. The Torians were wiped out by a natural disaster, some five years ago, but the advanced artificial intelligence that ran their day-to-day operations was underground and remains intact. There may still be information of use there."

"All clear," Jenna reports from the pilot's chair.

"I would advise caution in dealing with A.I.s," Avon says as he walks onto the flight deck, voice severe. "Generally, a being intelligent enough to be self-aware will also always want something."

"Welcome back, Avon." Blake turns. "And what course of action would you suggest?"

"I would—agree—that there is benefit in visiting this Thoth and hearing what this A.I. has to say."

"Very well," Blake says with the hint of a smile. "Zen, standard by four. And onwards."

 


End file.
